[Theodoric]

I'm afraid that my very recent experience of ntl Customer Services and complaints procedure is the direct opposite of Ian&Huth. To put it bluntly it is appalling and a disgrace. However, I think that I may have discovered some of the ntl rules for dealing with customers.

1) Never mind not giving out your name, which I could understand; refuse point blank to give any sort of job number that the customer could use for future phone calls. That way you can ensure that he has to start from the beginning every time.

2) There is one exception to rule one; occasionally give out the name of a manager and say that he will phone you - of course he has no intention of doing any such thing, but it sounds good.

3) Promise the earth to get the customer off your back. However, you must have your fingers crossed while you do this, otherwise you might, heaven forfend, be required to honour your promise.

4) And now, an extremely important rule. Never, ever, under any circumstances phone the customer back to explain why your promise, or the engineer's visit, never took place. I strongly suspect that to do so may be a sacking offence in ntl.

5) Never mind if you don't have any qualified engineers available; send out a couple of the nearest trainees. What, they might trash the customer's system? No problem, we'll just ignore it.

6) If on occasion you are actually forced to arrange an engineer's visit (you won't earn any bonus if you do that too often), always give the poor engineer incorrect information (just ignore what the customer has gone to great lengths to explain to you) so that he cannot do anything useful when he reaches the customer.

I could go on and on; really, I could.